2017/02/24

This recurring concern with European defense spending is understandable, but it mostly misses the point. Why? Because the fundamental problem isn’t inadequate latent capacity or even a lack of mobilized resources. The only “clear and present” military threat Europe faces today is a resurgent Russia (though this threat may not be nearly as great as alarmists maintain), and NATO’s European members possess the wherewithal to deal with the challenge on their own. Leaving the United States and Canada out of the equation, NATO’s European members have nearly four times Russia’s population, and their combined GDP is more than 12 times greater. More importantly, even at today’s supposedly “inadequate” spending levels, every year NATO’s European members (again: not counting the United States and Canada) spend at least five times more on defense than Russia does.

The problem, in other words, is not the amount of money that European countries devote to national security. The problem rather is that they don’t spend these funds very effectively and don’t coordinate their defense activities as well as they could. Despite numerous attempts, Europe’s long-promised “Common Foreign and Security Policy” remains an aspiration, not a reality. This failure isn’t at all surprising, because CFSP is an EU initiative and the EU is still more of a collection of nation-states rather than a fully integrated community. The key point, however, is that throwing more euros (or kroner or zlotys) at the problem won’t fix it.

On this occasion I'd like to present you the current IISS infographic on global military spending.

Country blue has a fleet size of 100 units and country red has a fleet size of 40 units.

Country blue has the shipyard capacity to build 5 units a year and country red has the shipyard capacity to build 50 units a year.

Would it make sense for country blue's navy proponents to demand an increase in the fleet size to 120 units in order to cope with the challenge that country red is capable of?

I suppose it's not sensible at all. It's a wasteful and losing proposition.

An alternative would be to approach the issue diplomatically;

A naval treaty might be negotiated that limits both countries to a fleet size of 80.

Both countries would be served well by this, and it would be a win-win treaty. Country blue can reduce its spending by approx. 20% (>33% compared to the plan to increase to 120), while country red would be recognised as equal in naval affairs and could achieve fleet parity with much less spending at an earlier date.

A similar treaty existed a century ago, the Washington Naval Treaty. It lasted for 14 years until it was washed away - as so much else - by a wave of jingoism and hostilities.

The limitation on actual warship hulls would go counter to the intuitive pursuit of self-interest by the navies, but it would motivate them to find ways around the limitations. One of these ways could be a containerised, modular system to turn freighters into auxiliary warships - armed merchantmen - within weeks. Convoys of freighters and armed merchantmen could become capable of self defence against missile attacks, submarines within heavyweight torpedo range and against surface and some aerial threats. Meanwhile, the official and permanent warship fleet could be focused on submarines (SSI preferably), ships with huge (BMD) radars and - if this is for some reason advisable - CTOL aircraft carriers. The naval air service could include a surplus of AEW and ASW helicopters officially meant for coatal protection and really meant for the armed merchantmen.

Such a country blue navy might also be motivated to invest much in the development of drones (underwater, surface and aerial). Ship hulls become the less important the more the military functions are transferred from the platforms to drones, offering a way to mitigate the importance of the shipyard inferiority.

Navies that seek more ship hulls would intuitively hate such a concept, but navies that had the pursuit of more ship hulls blocked by a binding treaty might embrace such a concept. Well, unless the navy is as powerful as the IJN was and pushes the government to leave the treaty.

There are downsides for country blue, of course.

country red would reach parity sooner

country red would have an on average newer (more modern) fleet when it reaches parity

country red could still leave the treaty and commence a naval arms race, which it is bound to win

The treaty strategy would thus not be perfect for country blue, but the status quo ante of country blue isn't perfect anyway, unless it somehow finds a way to catch up in regard to shipbuilding capacity. The treaty might in fact be a huge improvement, even if it wouldn't last long.

From January 28 - February 1, 2017, YouGov asked 7,150 adults living in the United States the question:

"Do you consider the countries listed below to be a friend or an enemy of the United States?"

Almost nothing about the results was unexpected; the usual bogeymen ranked high as "enemies". I suppose the poll may not be scientifically representative to the highest standards, but I also believe that almost all of the results are representative.

I saved this as a bookmark for later use and after all the political reality disconnects of the past weeks I think it's a nice excuse for a roundhouse kick on questionable security policy world views:

The worst-rated ("enemies") countries were (for Republicans)

North Korea (worst)

Iran

Syria

Libya

Iraq

Afghanistan

Somalia

Palestinian Territories

Sudan

Pakistan

Yemen

South Sudan

Lebanon

Cuba

Let's look at those, one by one. The descriptions obviously aren't 100% complete, but I suppose the most important issues get mentioned.

North Korea

a hereditary tyranny with fig leaf of communist ideology

in Asia

effectively no human rights there

started a war of aggression against South Korea 56 years ago, was subsequently pushed back by -among others- U.S. forces

provoked South Korea repeatedly, including sinking of a corvette a few years ago

annoying in its readiness to export weapons and munitions to countries not liked by the U.S.

no attacks on U.S. soil ever

potential nukes seller

surprisingly, no Muslims here, but still at top of the list

The U.S. must be fantastically safe if this is the worst enemy.

Iran

a theocracy with elected parliament

in Asia

human rights issues, though surprisingly it's a more welcoming place to transsexuals than the U.S., since 1987

killed a few Americans and took many hostage at about the time of their revolution against a U.S.-backed tyrant - 37 years ago

attempted to enact a blockade against Iraqi oil exports (including through Kuwait) during its defensive war, was countered by USN

annoying in their (regional) great power gaming in which they are a patron to Shi'ite factions in other countries (where Shia are often more or less oppressed by Sunni governments)

did support some Shi'ite groups considered terrorist by the U.S. government

annoying loudmouthing and grandstanding (though the worst example is long out of office)

were on the verge of being able to become a nuclear power in a few years

the U.S. -which otherwise insists a lot on freedom of navigation - is super-irritated when USN ships encounter Iranian warships and boats close to the Iranian coast, used to shoot them (and an airliner) on sight during the 80's

Syria

a tyranny with an ongoing civil war including the human rights abuses typical of both tyranny and warfare

in Asia

did literally nothing to the U.S.

hosts military bases for Russia, thus giving them a foothold in the region

did have chemical munitions until recently, may have used them

the government-opposing faction Daesh (also the brand du jour for asswipes who want to commit terrorism anywhere and want to freeride on some corporate identity and marketing machine) is centred in Syria's rural East, but has little popular support

another government-opposing kinda-Al Qaida faction is there as well

tolerates that the U.S. and other foreign powers bomb Daesh on its soil

Libya

hardly a state any more

in Africa

is in a civil war

one civil war faction is a (currently badly losing) Daesh offspring

the long-ousted leader of Libya was a delusional case of loudmouth, supported some terrorism in the 80's and supported Muslim insurgencies in Africa, especially Chad

Libya got bombed by the U.S. decades ago, under Reagan

Iraq

Iraq's government is supported by and friends with the U.S. government

in Asia

is in a civil war

Daesh controls some territories of Iraq

Iraq is fighting Daesh with support by U.S.

the long-ousted leader of Iraq had and used chemical munitions (particularly in his U.S.-tolerated war of aggression against Iran), attacked and occupied Kuwait until kicked out by coalition forces including mostly U.S. forces, was a loudmouth and supposedly once sent assassins after George Bush

Afghanistan

Afghanistan's government is supported and subsidised by the U.S.

in Asia

Taliban are at home in Afghanistan (and Pakistan); they harboured UBL and his AQ mercenaries 15 years ago - before he admitted being behind 9/11

Taliban were attacked and pushed out of power by U.S. in 2001, they kept fighting a guerilla war against the Afghan government and its foreign allies on Afghan soil ever since

Afghanistan is fighting against Taliban together with U.S.

Afghanistan applies tribal customs that overlap with "Sharia" (!!!) law

some Salafist faction exists, but has no role outside of Somalia and very close areas

became a piracy heaven years ago (now suppressed) for want of governmental enforcement of order

one clan once gave U.S. special forces a bloody nose in a botched raid some 23 years ago

Palestinian Territories

geographically and politically divided into two by now very different parts

in Asia

inhabited mostly by Sunni Arabs

were occupied (illegally) by Israel for decades, West Bank is still mostly occupied and gets illegally colonised by Israel

Palestinians were involved in uprisings against Israeli occupation and engaged in skirmishes on and off for decades

some Palestinians welcomed the 9/11 strikes in 2001

Palestinians were involved in much terrorism, particularly during the 70's and 80's and related primarily to the conflict with Israel, secondarily to because of ideological links with wannabe communist terrorists

Sudan

waged a quite genocidal war against its South for a long time, but South Sudan ceded years ago

in Africa

some ongoing conflicts with South Sudan

harboured UBL during the 90's, then evicted him (he fled to Afghanistan)

had a fertiliser factory bombed by the U.S.

Pakistan

only (Sunni) Muslim-dominated country that has nukes

in Asia

used to be a military dictatorship, is approximating a presidential republic nowadays

is seemingly perpetually stuck in a mini cold war with India

has territorial conflict with India (Kashmir)

didn't police mountainous ("tribal") areas in the West for a long time, which led to a domestic conflict win the area

military intelligence service is widely believed to have de facto founded Taliban, and supported them well past 2001

home of many really bad phone call centres

Yemen

used to be separated into a typical but practically oilless Arab state and a pseudo-socialist somewhat modernised state until a unification in 1990

in Asia

AQ attack on USS Cole happened in Aden 16 years ago

government wasn't able to police the country properly, but tolerated U.S. surveillance assassination campaign with aerial drones for years

domestic tensions and conflicts erupted in civil war (depending on how you want to write down history, the war began 2004 or maybe 2011)

Shi'ite Houthi faction was about to become dominant until Sunni Arab dictators intervened against it militarily

South Sudan

in Africa

I'm at a loss here why South Sudan might be considered an enemy of the United States. It may involuntarily be the host of Joseph Kony (LRA from Uganda, infamous for leading child soldiers and many war crimes) and "South Sudan" sounds like "Sudan". I can't think of anything else that a majority of Americans might know about.

Only about 18% Muslims here

Lebanon

Lebanon was civil war-torn especially in the 80's, suffering in part form an Israeli invasion

in Asia

the country is so very heterogeneous in ethnicity, religion and politics that speaking of one county is misleading

one faction truck-bombed U.S.Marines barracks in Lebanon, which convinced Reagan that the region is too nuts to deal with. Reagan withdrew U.S. forces after claiming to be unimpressed and ordering some punitive bombings.

South Lebanon is dominated by Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which opposes and occasionally skirmishes with Israel, even prompting a war in 2006

one of the 9/11 hijackers was from Lebanon. Lebanon is the ONLY country on this short list that was homeland of a 9/11 hijacker, sponsor or planner

Cuba

pseudo-communist dictatorship

in Americas (Caribbean)

played an important role during the Cold War, but has since become very unimportant

embarrassed the U.S: by repulsing a botched invasion attempt of proxies in 1961

used to export wannabe communist revolutionaries/guerillas in the 60's and 70's into Latin America, also into Angola against Apartheid South Africa's and the West's proxies

exile Cubans are fierce haters of the Cuban regime and loyal (R) voters (they likely tipped the scales in favour of Drumpf in Florida and thus overall)

practically no Muslims there, that's weird

- - - - -

This looks very much like a list of most miserable, suffering countries of the world (though Cuba, Lebanon and Pakistan would be misplaced and some places such as Eritrea missing) and much less like a list of countries that want to attack the U.S. or its allies, or did so. Such examples are actually a minority, and examples like the invasion of South Korea are ancient.

It's striking how hostility to these countries, their populations or their governments is no "winning" strategy. It's not "defeating" the hostility or regime. Cuba has faced U.S. hostility for more than 56 years and the regime is still in power. North Korea: 66 years. Iran: 37 years. Invading Iraq in 2003 evidently didn't remove it from this list. Generally, bombing or invading countries during the last ~40 years rather seems to add countries to this short list, not remove them.

It's also striking that Saudi-Arabia is missing. Only 42% of the responses rated it as an enemy or unfriendly.

Saudi Arabia as a country (government and people) was and is the #1 sponsor and distributor of Wahhabism/Salafism, a.k.a. radical Islam.

Saudi-Arabia is a tyranny with a "royal" clan running a kleptocratic oligarchy

15 of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi-Arabia

As was UBL himself

Saudis (not necessarily the ruling clan/clique) sponsored Taleban, AQ, Al Nusra Front and Daesh (though by now the government opposes Daesh as Daesh doesn't recognise the legitimacy of the Saudi tyrant clan).

The Saudi government ranks high in human rights violations, especially the oppression of women and Christians

Saudi public beheadings put Daesh to shame with their extreme quantity.

I believe the American public is misinformed about the real hostility of countries, as well as about the roots of what hostility actually exists. The U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy are perfectly unsuitable to tone down such hostility and instead does the most possible to let it carry on to the next generation. A real security policy that's not great power gaming and instead really caring about security regarding foreign threats would be different. It would seek to reduce hostilities, even if there's a parallel containment effort that reduces the freedom of action that aggressive foreign rulers have.

There is an upside: The PR China didn't make it high on the Republicans' "enemies" list (yet?), so presumably there's today not much political freedom of action for the current U.S. government to turn more confrontational in the West Pacific than it already did with Obama's/HRC's "Pivot to Asia".

2017/02/22

I wrote for years about how a radar (even a radar of an AEW aircraft) can be used to direct a missile launched from a remote platform (ground vehicle, ship, aircraft) to the vicinity of a hostile aircraft where the missile's own sensor locks on the target and guides the missile during the terminal homing phase.

Now, somewhat belatedly, I noticed that I never really told readers about the terminology for this.

One relevant keyword is "Cooperative Engagement Capability" (CEC), and the more general buzzword is of course "network-centric warfare" (NCW).

The entire thing rests heavily on digital datalinks (typically "Link 16"), but analogue systems to guide manned interceptors to the vicinity of bombers existed already back in the 1940's and were quite sophisticated by the 1950's. Early digital systems appeared in the 1960's (example; Swedish "STRIL 60"). I was astonished when I learned that the U.S. Navy didn't test some early kind of CEC ability with missiles guided by another platform than the launch platform until well into the 1990's, for I had simply assumed that this had been a feature of AEGIS since the 80's. It seemed to be a no-brainer to me that illumination radars of multiple ships should be available for missile terminal homing guidance.

Readers might have noticed that I often do not suppose that sensor and weapon need to be united on one platform or in one battery. Artillery began to give this up prior to the First World War, when it detached forward observers who communicated with howitzer batteries via field telephone (cable). Warships did this a little later, with aircraft observing fall of shot (particularly in coastal bombardments).

It still feels intuitive and self-evident that a surface-to-air missile system needs to have a matching sensor (radar) to form a battery with launcher+control cabin+sensor, but it's not self-evident at all.

The availability of lock-on after launch (LOAL) sensors on missiles enables us to use somewhat imprecise sensors that do not need need to deliver very exact vectors to and of the target vehicle. The 'footprint' of the missile's seeker can find the target if only the missile is directed to fly approximately to the target and arrives in its vicinity for its own sensor to take over.

Another important step was to leave semi-active radar homing (SARH) behind; this required powerful radar emitters that "illuminated" the target, so the missile with its passive radar seeker could track the target by the reflections. The switch to active radar homing (ARH) and passive (usually infrared) homing seekers allows to get rid of the huge illuminating radar.
Fighters can now turn and run away after launching their missiles at the target. This way they run away from the target's missile shots and the friendly missiles may still get midcourse updates (from other fighters, even if those are too far away fro SARH illumination) to find the target by another fighter that didn't turn. 1990's and later fighters (Gripen, Typhoon, Rafale) tend to have this kind of cooperation capability.

The good news are

we don't need to spend as much on land-based and warship radars any more

our SAM batteries aren't easily suppressed or knocked out by attacks on their radars any more since they may not even have a radar

warships without anti-air warfare specialisation may now still be hugely capable in AAW

while the bad news with all this are

air war depends even more on radio communications (datalinks) than before

missiles are more expensive because ARH is expensive

we should spend more on survivable AEW assets (and should find a better acronym than "AEW")

opposing forces' area air defences may also be highly resilient if designed to function without and organic emitting radar

Under the NIFC-CA ‘From the Air’ (FTA) construct, the APY-9 radar would act as a sensor to cue Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles for Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets fighters via the Link-16 datalink. Moreover, the APY-9 would also act as a sensor to guide Raytheon Standard SM-6 missiles launched from Aegis cruisers and destroyers against targets located beyond the ships’ SPY-1 radars’ horizon via the Cooperative Engagement Capability datalink under the NIFC-CA ‘From the Sea’ (FTS) construct. In fact, the Navy has demonstrated live-fire NIFC-CA missile shots using the E-2D’s radar to guide SM-6 missiles against over-the-horizon shots—which by definition means the APY-9 is generating a weapons quality track.

2017/02/21

Both Iran and North Korea recently gained attention for testing ballistic missiles. Both events were treated as a crisis by the international Western media, and Drumpf took severe criticism for his display of lacking professionalism when read presumably confidential reports in full view of clearly unauthorised personnel. Well, at least we saw him reading more than 140 characters in one sitting for once. I actually found that to be rather reassuring.

The whole exasperation is in my opinion entirely misplaced, regardless of what the UNSC thought about it.

Western countries and Russia are testing nuclear warhead-capable missiles often and we don't presume that anyone else should feel threatened. The United States have thousands of nuclear warheads, Iran has none and would need many years to build a weak one - which remains practically impossible as long as the IAEA keeps inspecting it finding no nuclear arms program (Iran does follow its NPT obligations, while the U.S. doesn't) and the recent treaty on the issue remains in force (which Drumpf doesn't want it to be).

North Korea meanwhile has a few nuclear warheads of low yield (but they're likely very dirty because of their inefficiency), but evidently doesn't use them on any other country.

The entire exasperation about North Korea testing long range ballistic missiles (which could be intercepted by the operational BMD, but maybe wouldn't) is about the scenario of a nuclear warhead reaching Honolulu or even CONUS cities. This is supposed to be scary. That, of course, would also be possible if they launched a simple rocket from a ship four nautical miles off the coast, where - freedom of navigation! - they have the right to cruise anyway.

My advice is to ignore all these issues. Ignore North Korean nukes, ignore Iranian and North Korean ballistic missiles.

One hint should have been that North Korea didn't use its nukes so far.

They won't use them, ever. The North Korean regime is a hereditary tyranny with a fig leaf of communist ideology. The first and foremost objective of the entire state is to support and sustain the rule and safety of the leader and his children. Everything else is of much lesser importance (even the lives of uncles and half-brothers).

To use a nuclear warhead all but ensures defeat by a nuclear power, maybe by three of them.

Moreover, even if North Korea was in a conventional war and losing badly, with the leader and his last troops pushed back to the Yalu - North Korea would still not use any nuclear warhead as long as the PRC offers the leader a life in exile. To use a nuclear warhead at that stage would not avert defeat, but it would ensure that the leader would be extradited or assassinated instead of surviving in exile as a filthy rich man.

Nuclear munitions larger than the really small ones (up to 1 kt TNTeq) are almost perfectly unusable post-WW2, at least against targets on land. The powers that have them have no use for them against smaller powers, and face the threat of nuclear retaliation in regard to attacks on other great powers.

A country can threaten to use nukes, but that's about it - it's almost 100% a bluff.

It's thus best to call the bluff by ignoring such "threats", even perceived peripheral threats such as ballistic missile tests. We are almost certainly safe as long as we don't attack them,and even then a use of nukes is unlikely. A military history parallel for this exists in the German non-use of Tabun nerve gas during WW2.

Next time North Korea launches a big ballistic missile congratulate them to their achievement and ask them when they will launch their first geosurveillance satellite that helps the country's agriculture to optimise the use of land for food production. Don't treat it as a national security issue. It isn't one.

One advice in particular to politicians who want to communicate the "strong man" image; being easily scared by harmless missile tests doesn't fit the image you want to project. Cool, dismissive statements on the other hand would do so.

2017/02/20

The Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile system (a.k.a. SA-21 Growler) is famous and succeeding the S-300 as the preferred area air defence nightmare. S-300 sales negotiations make Western warmongers fear for their ability to incite Western powers to cruise missile diplomacy and other aerial bullying, already. S-400 is much more powerful - and much more expensive, too.

Most S-400 batteries are deployed around the air defence capital of the world, Moscow. The others are located at certain points of great interest to Russia. We would likely not see many S-400 batteries in a Russia-NATO conflict at the front, but most likely a few, since their unique capabilities are so useful.

S-400 is capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, aircraft, cruise missiles - the usual stuff for an area air defence system. Two characteristic stand out:

a UHF search radar that can detect low and very low observable ("stealth") aircraft at very useful ranges because their shaping doesn't help against these wavelengths

a super long range missile (one type believed to have 400 km nominal range) that would force transport aircraft, tanker aircraft, Elint aircraft, jammer aircraft and long range radar aircraft (AWACS/Sentry, Erieye, Hawkeye, J-STARS, ASTOR/Sentinel) to stay at a respectful distance, minimising if not eliminating their utility to the opposing forces.

There would be several possible fields of employment among not very Russia-friendly countries for such a missile system, particularly the 40N6 missile:

Taiwan dominating the Taiwan strait and securing the first ~ 100 nm of a convoy lane eastward

Sweden dominating much of the air space over the Baltic Sea and over its North

Finland covering the airspace of its vast North

Japan securing its West and the Tsushima Strait against PRC air power

United States defending Guam, including against ballistic PGMs

The alternative to most of these would be fighter patrols, but even quick reaction alert fighter forces could not cope with saturation attacks and strike packages as well as a battery that can launch dozens of missiles in a few minutes. Either way, past about 200-250 km one would need external radar sensors (typically AEW) to exploit the range of such a missile.

I'm not typically in favour of anyone buying anything from one of the big American arms manufacturers (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, all three shipyards etc.) for they are slow to deliver, expensive and often underperforming. The only alternative in this case would be MBDA, though. They could use the Aster-30's booster technology with a modified (all ramjet) Meteor missile to approximate the performance of SM-6 and 40N6, but this would take many years and billions. So there would be no reason at all to ask it do develop such a thing unless MBDA would pay back much of the buyer's bill through taxation.

SM-6 can be launched from a vertical silo, and assuming that the missile can be stored for a while in the horizontal position (which is most likely) there should be little difficulty in creating a land-based version. I wouldn't ask for a complete area air defence system, though. A containerised launcher, a command & control container, a radio datalink (Link 16) container and an off-the shelf generator trailer should suffice. Sensor data could be provided by external sources such as AEW aircraft radar, warship radar, fighter radar or land-based radars.

This could still turn into a multi-billion nightmare, and I'm not talking Zimbabwean dollars here. The best course of action would be if Raytheon made such a land-based SM-6 firing unit design ready and available off-the-shelf, so merely IADS integration, certification and technical manual translations would be necessary development activities for a sale. A price of about USD 5 million per missile is bad enough - there should be no huge development expenses for a niche product be paid by the first or any customer.

P.S.: I resent Raytheon in part for repeatedly sending press releases out claiming that SM-6 did set records for surface-to-air kills in tests without ever mentioning the achieved distance. Deliver or don't claim!

(1) and (2) should be self-explaining and obvious, but the term "white peace" may require explanation. A white peace is a peace under which the status quo ante is restored; no party of the conflict gains or loses territory nor do they gain or lose territory claims nor does any part become obliged to pay reparations of any kind.

It's essentially a reset to the pre-war situation except for the damage done and the aggressor having learnt that this kind of war does not yield benefits.

The intent behind the doctrine is to minimise the damage done by war. To compel the aggressor into accepting more ambitious demands would require additional war efforts and would lead to greater human suffering and economic damage, but also to greater risks. Essentially, points (1) and (2) become effective once the defending power has reached the point where the aggressor would agree to a white peace; the diplomatic ending of the war serves the same purpose as did the peacefulness and deterrence effort prior to the war.

It's part of the "quick" requirement that the war should not be escalated unless this serves to end it quickly. A regional limitation of the conflict by the aggressor should be welcomed. "quick" does not include nuclear suicide, of course.

_ _ _ _ _

This leads to a somewhat weird optimum-finding for peacetime defence policy. On one hand we should want to spend just as much as required to deter, but on the other hand we should spend enough to defeat an aggression quickly. The ability to defeat a foreign power quickly (to the point of white peace) typically requires more resources spent in peacetime than to the ability to merely defeat an aggressor slowly.

My preference regarding military spending in the EU is on enforcing a white peace quickly rather than slowly and barely. This has the additional benefit of offering a greater margin of safety in the deterrence effort.

The consequences of such a doctrine are far-reaching and tend to yield very different outcomes than the pursuit of armed services' self-interest, to follow old paths or to pursue intuitively favoured "balanced forces".

The "How to fix..." series has shown this; usually I dispense with the unessential (which in the European context is usually the navy) and focus on quickly effective air and land power, backed up by cheap militias and possibly a single regiment for protection of the national government in the capital (akin to the German Wachbataillon).

NATO is a two-continents alliance, so we can have many forces optimised for the first weeks of conflict, with forces from the other continent or even only other end of the same continent arriving much later in force and adding a strategic deterrent against continuing a war past a white peace offer.

All luxuries should be cut mercilessly. The strategic Schwerpunkt should be on the ability to defeat an aggression quickly to the point where agreement to a white peace proposal is likely. This requires economy of force elsewhere; cut everything else that's not needed for this purpose.

Even slight inefficiencies in military spending due to having poor ideas or lacking the self-discipline to follow good ideas can cause an annual waste of resources greater than the entire debt refinancing of Greece and Spain combined. The current inefficiency of military policymaking in Europe is a huge ongoing crisis. Sadly, almost everyone seems to have become accustomed to this inefficiency.

2017/02/18

It's impossible for both to be vastly superior in military power to pursue their own security. Only one can be vastly superior at a time, and the attempt to reach this superiority may lead to an economic lose-lose situation. Even the case that one nation gains such an upper hand is messy; warmongers would push for an abuse of this power.

Reality is even more destabilising; aggressors have intrinsic advantages ceteris paribus.

Here's an incomplete list, which I expect to link to in later posts:

timing (procurement): The aggressor can choose the timing of the procurement of new technologies in order to reach a technological superiority during a certain time window

timing (season): An aggressor could train and equip especially for one season (such as wintertime), gaining a specialisation advantage during this season.

timing (day): The aggressor can choose the first day of conflict to his advantage, example Yom Kippur War.

concentration before counterconcentration: The aggressor can amass his forces in the border region and the defender can react to this only with a lag (detection, communication, decisionmaking, distribution of orders)

choice of theatre: The aggressor can choose where to attack, and whether to draw small powers into the conflict. He may limit the conflict to a single region if it suits his strengths, or escalate widely if he thinks this would suit his strengths. The non-aggressive defender would not forcibly draw additional neutral powers into the conflict.

unusually high readiness at day of aggression is possible: Aircraft, ships and heavy land forces equipment often have readiness rates of 50-80% in peacetime, but this can be pushed to 80-95% at a specific date, for example for maximum power available on the day of aggression. One example was Germany in 1940; the readiness rated of the Luftwaffe were artificially high in the days prior to the campaign in the West.

strategic surprise: This goes well past mere timing; an aggressor can desensitise the target to the telltale signs of attack preparations by repeatedly showing these without attacking for real. This, too, happened in 1940 - the multiple delays of the German campaign in the West desensitised the French to the (often correct, but soon obsolete) intelligence reports of German attack intentions.

aggresssor gains bargaining chips: The aggressor will likely make some territorial gains, which in the event of a truce will serve as bargaining chips or may even be occupied indefinitely

Most of these advantages cannot be mitigated fully, but at least partially so.

(Are you in favour that the EU states create a European defence union and join their armed services?)

yes 50%

no 43%

I disagree with the majority on latter one, but that's for reasons of above-average knowledge on the subject. I suppose the vast majority of responders merely thought about the issue on the political level, where we learned that cooperation is a hugely successful approach most of the time. Sometimes it's not the best choice, though (same problem as with the common currency).

I have seen an international poll about the willingness of men to fight for their country, with Germany ranking really low. I don't care about such polls because I think the reason for such a result is the feeling that we're not threatened. All the irrational aspects of readiness to fight only come into play once you feel that you or your community are under threat. Without this, only factors like grandstanding, versions of masculinity cult or a high esteem of the armed services will lead to a high rating in such a poll.

Regardless of what certain nutjobs all over the world claim, Germany is not in any real trouble, particularly not by external threats (including immigration).

Foreign "threats" are little more than bogeymen that scare the simple-minded ones, with a fig leaf of basis in reality. The polls above show that Germans aren't easily scared by bogeymen, unlike many other countries and the German far right.

2017/02/14

.Let's first have a quick look at the security situation of the pro-Western countries in East Asia:

Taiwan:

Cannot withstand PR Chinese airpower, its navy cannot protect maritime trade lanes against PR Chinese air and sea power, and its rather neglected army is unimpressive. The biggest threat is still the threat of an amphibious invasion, for Taiwan could keep resisting blockade and a non-nuclear bombardment for years. The greatest security hope is that the USN would intervene with its air power and submarine force if the PRC went aggressive, so Taiwan would really only need to resist on its own for maybe a month or two.

Japan:

It's fairly safe from threats due to geographic separation, but in the long term or over the course of a long war it could face the same situation as Taiwan, albeit Japan is bigger.

South Korea:

It's militarily superior to North Korea in everything except light infantry numbers and nuclear munitions. Russia is not really a threat, but the PRC could be a threat similar as with Japan, or if it intervenes in a war on North Korea's behalf. South Korea could not be defended by its own forces or allied forces against the PRC's military potential due to its continental position. The threat of an amphibious invasion by the PRC's forces - a reverse Inchon - is relevant and would force South Korea to keep substantial forces in reserve in the event of war.

It is amazingly difficult to find an East Asia map that
shows Taiwan as separate if one uses English keywords.

I suppose the single most de-escalating and peace-preserving measure would be to take the PLAN's amphibious forces out of the equation.

- - - - -

So here's a plan for a security deal for East Asia

People that would need to know about the full plan:

President of the United States

Premier President of the Republic of China

Prime Minister of Japan

Everyone else would be kept ignorant about certain key parts, so that the bluff elements may succeed.

Taiwan and the United States begin talks about selling thousands of Abrams tanks, Bradley IFVs, M109 SPHs, M270 MRLs, ten thousands of Javelin missiles as well as about half of the U.S.' Patriot area air defence batteries and land-based SM-6 batteries with hundreds of new production missiles.

Japan and the United States begin talks about selling land-based SM-6 batteries and hundreds of F-18E/F/G combat aircraft, dozens of tanker aircraft as well as thousands of cruise missiles.

No doubt the PRC's leadership will proceed to fume and rev up to never-seen-before exasperation.

Weeks later a long-planned bilateral meeting between the presidents of the PRC and USA happens, and all these arms deals become a topic. The POTUS drops a line during this meeting - seemingly spontaneously - about how all these arms deals are all rooted in the PRC's amphibious aggression capability. 'Kind of as your concerns about our military power are mostly about our navy.'

The proposal for a deal arises, similar in spirit to the START treaties of the 80's:

Both PRC and USA mothball their entire amphibious fleets* with a bilateral inspection scheme

Neither PRC nor the USA buy or build any amphibious warfare ships, nor do they assist or subsidise other countries in building up their inventories of such ships

The U.S. doesn't deliver weapons or munitions to Taiwan, and won't deliver any air or naval warfare hardware to Japan.

The consequences would be

Taiwan is safer from invasion than it could be even if the USN was full-time focused on defending Taiwan

Japan is safer from the PRC

South Korea is safer from the PRC

Malaysia would be safe from the PRC

the PRC could not enforce any trade deals it made with African countries by sending its navy

the USA would save approx. USD 10 billion every year, total gains (including manpower transferred to civilian economy for productive employment) would probably exceed USD 20 billion every year

less confrontational political climate in East Asia AFTER the deal

no substantial downsides

The downside of the plan as a whole - not of a potential treaty - is the temporary heating up of the political climate in the region. An extreme (and unlikely) worst case would be a preventive PRC invasion of Taiwan - a risk that the Premier President of the Republic of China would have to assess before agreeing to the plan.

*: With measures that make it impossible to reactivate more of half of those fleets in less than three months, such as removing the engines from the hulls.

P.S.: Now don't tell me that 'dealmaker' Drumpf is going to do anything remotely similar, please. He already botched the "One China" issue terribly. His attention span would not suffice to read this article.

I don't think that this is necessarily a super-wise policy proposal. It's merely the idea of one man. It's rather the kind of proposal that I think aides to great power leaders should produce - about 40-50 such ideas per year as a creative input for strategic policies. To work out details and do the risk assessment would be an inter-agency team project.

The Romanian armed forces are utter crap. Have a look at their ancient equipment, look at their tiny budget (corrected in purchasing power parity), look at their geography and keep in mind they're members of both NATO (since 29 March 2004) and EU (since 1 January 2007).

Their navy is entirely pointless. There would need to be any civilian maritime traffic in the Black Sea in wartime nor makes an amphibious invasion any sense, period. It's perfectly possible to substitute all maritime traffic with road and rail traffic for a couple months, and you don't need any civilian traffic if a war lasts but a few weeks.

Their mini air force is almost entirely pointless as well. Those worn-out 2nd hand F-16s are useful for air policing, and other than that they're mere decoys to be parked on airbases. The second dozen is surplus and may end up getting cannibalised.

Too many helicopters are in use, presumably bought in part to support the domestic license producer (assembly line).

Their army has the size of about one typical divisional slice, but its equipment is stuck in the 70's and 80's, with few older and newer exceptions. Their list of capabilities for alliance defence appears to be short:

This is a devastating critique because the Romanian armed forces are a perfect example for when a country maintains the façade of having well-rounded armed forces (tank forces, infantry, arty, air defences, warships, helicopters, fast combat jets) without spending the money to keep them modern enough for anything but the least challenging tasks. The fact is that Romania CANNOT spend enough to afford well-rounded armed forces of anything but inefficient miniature size. Romania has a moderate public debt so far and any deficit spending to spend more on the military would be utter nonsense given their alliance situation.

My first idea for reform was to pick 1,000-3,000 selected most promising personnel and disband & scrap the rest of the military, starting over from a blank sheet of paper. There's no budget for starting over like that, though.

- - - - -

Suggestions for change

Three approaches came to my mind:

(1) Militia approach

Get rid of the navy (though some units may be transferred to a maritime policing agency).

Reduce the air force (some helicopters to civilian agencies for disaster relief, keep the 12 F-16s but fly them only for air policing (24/7 two fighters on 5 minute readiness) and whatever training is necessary to maintain flight safety for this mission (no need for new pilots - even 60 year old pilots could do air policing). The air component (no separate "air force" organisation at all) should also maintain several air bases (especially runways & kerosene supply) so they could immediately be used by allied expeditionary air power.

Turn the army into a militia, divided by three categories of battalion battle groups:

militia battalions for delaying missions in the Eastern Carpathian mountains

militia battalions for object security missions at major (Danube) bridges, at airports and airbases, at powerplants etc. and in cities (especially in Bucharest)

militia battalions for Jagdkampf / Raumverteidigung tactics at ~100 km depth in flatlands at the Ukrainian and Moldavian borders

Only the latter category would require major investments in modern anti-MBT munition and radios. Platoon leadership quality would be the most important thing in all of these missions, so selection, education, training and experience of platoon leadership should be at the centre of the entire militia's personnel system.

(2) Humble low budget military

Same as before regarding navy and air force, but the army would be different in this model:

It would focus on four relatively cheap brigades with a limited repertoire. They would focus on what the current army is moderately capable of already, mostly

reduction of pockets

combat in urban and woodland terrain

This requires some addition of modern anti-MBT munitions, modern radios, minimum quantity of modern night vision equipment for infantry (and security pickets of other units) and very little else. Interoperability would be of little concern; these brigades or their battalion battlegroups would be sent into an area to defend or clear it with little assistance by allied forces, and until further notice.

One regiment for the capital and a couple reserve security battalions would form the backup territorial forces.

This concept might be a lot more affordable if the army as a whole rested in large part on reservists. It would be best if the organisation was oriented towards wartime strength (strength 48 hrs after mobilisation), NOT peacetime "active forces" strength. Senior officers instinctively prefer the latter because that's what they get to play with and to show off during most of the time.

(3) Totally NATO-integrated army + air policing

Again the same for air force and navy.

This approach would follow the idea for low budget brigades integrated into better-funded allied corps as described in a previous article of mine. Budget reasons would prevent much modernisation of the equipment, so again anti-MBT munitions, modern radios and a minimum of modern night vision equipment for the infantry and security pickets should be at the centre of new equipment procurement.

The capabilities of these brigades would still be modest (the training budget would likely not suffice for much mobile warfare proficiency), and they would depend on allied forces (mostly corps support) for electronic warfare, military intelligence, air defence, counterartillery, long range fires, precision fires, air support including rotary aviation support et cetera.

Again, some reservist territorial security forces.

- - - - -

The Romanian armed forces are mostly a waste of what little budgets they get. The equipment quality, training and readiness are abysmal due to the budget constraints. The Romanian contribution to alliance security is negligible and little improvement in this regard is possible in the next 15 years or more due to the economic situation. Romania SHOULD NOT spend more on its military. Romania is secured thanks to its foreign policy already. Its biggest return for the favour of security assurances by its allies is that it increases the distance between them and any plausible threat.

NATO and EU might help Romania with military subsidies (not mere dumping of old 2nd rate equipment into the country, but actually transferring funds). This would be a much more cost-efficient contribution to alliance security than to spend on expensive American, French or British personnel, for example. It would not be a problematic parallel to the Roman Empires' problematic employment of mercenaries if it was still but a small share of their defence spending. There's little Romania can do in regard to military power without such extra funds except cutting wasteful nonsense.

A "hollow force" is a military which still has plenty shiny platforms,
but lacks the spares, training and consumables to be much good with
them. I suppose this is rarely the outcome of incompetence and more
often the outcome of poor incentives, including the top brass' attempt
to blackmail politicians into providing bigger budgets while maintaining
officer slots.

It's a wide-spread problem, and in the U.S. it's apparently a cyclical thing. The military and members of the legislative appear to have almost conspired to follow a strategy of neglecting training and maintenance, even personnel numbers, in favour of buying stuff (particularly big ticket items such as ships and aircraft). This served the politicians' interests because they were able to satisfy lobbyists (the big ticket item sellers have a better lobby than the providers of consumables). The military meanwhile was sitting out a perceived reduction of spending (below the insane GWOT hysteria years' budgets), hoping to end up with more ships and aircraft after the fiscal moderation than if they avoided a hollow force.

Generally, I wonder why such shapes close to the body were used at all. Looking back at the ancient pteruges (which ended up making hoplites and legionaries look as if they wore mini skirts), we see a much more efficient (area : what's protected) shape. We can easily avoid this "mini skirt" impression by simply integrating fragmentation protection not into vests, but rather into a long jacket. The lower part would be supported by the hips (due to the belt) and thus not burden the back muscles, making a little more weight there rather acceptable. One would still need to judge whether the extra weight is really worth it.

The German newspaper FAZ had an article titled "Bundeswehr will „Ankerarmee“ für kleine Nato-Partner werden" (Bundeswehr wants to become anchor army for small NATO partners) to which I will not link for stupid legal reasons. This article describes how smaller NATO partners integrate their land forces into the German ones, benefiting from the German organisation above brigade level (corps HQ etc.). I wrote about something like this in 2015.

Military spending in Europe according to IISS "The Military Balance 2016":
Circles represent volume, colours represent increase 2014-2015

This critique will exclude the Carabinieri and the Guardia di Finanzia, paramilitary forces that are of marginal relevance for alliance defence.

Status quo critique

The Italian Navy (Marina Militare) is weirdly large. It intends to soon have two aircraft carriers, 14 major surface combatants and 8 submarines.

The Mediterranean Sea is the relevant maritime theatre for Italian national security, and the allied NATO and EU countries offer so many opportunities for basing air power on land that all hostile naval surface forces could be annihilated by land-based air power with ease, even without employment of tanker aircraft.

There is a small submarine threat by non-allied Mediterranean countries:

4, soon 6 Algerian Kilo submarines

5, soon 6 Israeli submarines

4 old + 4 outright obsolete Egyptian submarines

Morocco in talks to buy Russian submarines

This threat is dwarfed by what the alliance could muster, and in the event of a conflict the vast majority of the non-Israeli submarines wouldn't be in a really operational condition and at sea. Land-based air power could take out replenishment ships, submarines in harbours, harbour facilities and on top of that deploy naval mines in front of harbours.

The complete submarine threat in an incredibly unlikely event of warfare against another Mediterranean power or two would thus likely amount to a mere one or two submarine patrols.

The Russian Black Sea fleet can thus be considered the real ASW bogeyman. Its surface ships could be wiped out with land based air power as was mentioned before, but its six conventional submarines (1970's technology) could participate in a conflict in the Mediterranean Sea IF they were there already at the beginning of the conflict. Them trying to slip through the Bosporus during a conflict would be an issue for the Turkish armed forces (NATO allies), not for the Italian ones. Yet again, it would be unreasonable to expect more than 2/3 of these submarines to patrol the Med in a combat-ready condition in such a conflict, and they for sure couldn't replenish their munitions during a war. Even those four threat submarines are highly unlikely, for most if not all of them would probably be held back in the Black Sea.

Thus the entirety of naval threats that would need to be countered by the Italian navy TOGETHER with the Greek navy AND the Spanish navy AND whatever else the NATO or EU muster in the Mediterranean Sea would be about four conventional 1970's technology submarines with a total of about 72 torpedoes and missiles. This would enable about 50 sinkings of civilian ships if all four submarines were not disturbed on their patrol by any NATO or EU navy. Let's assume an average value of the targeted ships of EUR 100 million*; the assets to save in the event of war amount to about EUR 5 billion only.

In other words; there's no rational defence policy reason for spending billions of Euros every year on Italian (or Greek, Spanish) naval forces because there's no respective threat to deter or defeat. Whatever reasons there are for the current naval spending, they are either great power gaming 'reasons' or even worse 'reasons' (such as thought-free inertia).

This is something that hardly anyone seems to think of any more; defence makes no sense if it's more expensive than to not defend. It sure makes no sense to spend more on defence annually than the most you might possibly save from destruction in the event of war.
That's equivalent to paying 100 € per year to rent a safe deposit box to secure valuables worth 30 €.

The Italian Air Force (Aeronautica Militare) had a bad tradition of having terrible fighters and buying too many light and low combat value aircraft of domestic production. The current equipment of the Italian Air Force looks unusually good compared to the service's Cold War history, though.

F-35, Typhoon and Tornado ECR aircraft look relevant and mostly useful (though each type has its own issues and isn't anywhere near perfection). The Tornado IDS could still be somewhat usable as well, at least in the maritime domain. A big issue with the Italian air power is the lack of proper missiles for anti-ship strikes (other than anti-radar missiles and bombs). The only such missiles in service are for use by naval helicopters (Marte series). Storm Shadow (a land attack cruise missile) might have an anti-ship mode, but it is likely not as effective as dedicated anti-ship missiles are in this role. Italian land-based air power could dominate the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, but apparently it cannot.

The diversity of non-combat aircraft is rather higher than could be justified as necessary and lots of light combat aircraft with negligible utility for alliance defence are leeching funding.

These were comments about the aircraft; other topics that determine military value of combat aviation are training, readiness (especially the spare parts situation and availability of qualified crews) and munition stocks. I have no in-depth knowledge about these areas in regard to Italy, but superficial info that I picked up hinted at a hollowed-out force, with the Aeronautica Militare only deserving poor scores in all of these areas.

It should be noted that Italy possesses six of the most modern and most capable area air defence batteries, a French design (SAMP/T). To be accurate; these batteries are part of the army, not of the air force. They belong to the air war domain, though.

The Italian Army (Esercito Italiano) has a bad tradition of having mostly 2nd rate equipment. They do have an appreciation for wheeled AFVs comparable to the French army, with the Centauro vehicle (with a 105 mm tank gun) as the most famous such AFV.

They have nine combat brigades, one of which lacks an organic artillery battalion (the one on Sardinia). Eight brigades are subordinated to three divisions, the 9th being the airborne brigade. A special forces brigade holds two more light infantry (para) "regiments" and there's a marines "regiment" that's effectively an infantry battalion that may be useful for forced river crossings at least.

Two of the mechanised brigades are on islands; Sicily and Sardinia. This adds additional days to their deployment lag in the event of alliance defence elsewhere.**

The recent reorganisation was supposed to lead to what I would call two tank brigades, two brigades with wheeled AFVs and SPGs, four brigades with wheeled AFVs and towed artillery and one light airborne brigade. This means only two brigades are of the kind that one would accept to send against Russian army combat brigades, whereas the other seven brigades could be sent on raids (using the wheeled AFVs) or used for combat in urban, swampy or woodland areas (the airborne brigade). That's the theory judging by the nominal TO&E strengths.

I won't go into great detail criticising the equipment of the Italian army.

The Ariete main battle tank design is good enough to enable the crews to do their job if their training and their employment by superiors are (were) fine. There are a few thousand modern anti-tank missiles (Spike family) in service, which I consider to be not trustworthy in face of appropriate countermeasures. Many of these missiles are in use with attack helicopters that would have marginal survivability against Russian battlefield air defences.

Most of the Italian army equipment is typical for Western European land forces.

- - - - -

Suggestions for change

(1) Navy

The navy is of marginal utility in my opinion. Having a long coastline does not necessarily mean that you need a large navy. Nor does the existence of naval equipment manufacturers in your country justify a large navy.

Some mine hunting capability is advisable, and paramilitary institutions can handle the maritime surveillance, policing and SAR affairs. Mine hunters are typically of about the same size and speed as offshore patrol vessels, so mine hunting could be done by a paramilitary establishment as well (with the personnel designated to become combatants in the event of war) instead of having separate ships for maritime policing and mine hunting. The current inventory of mine countermeasure ships is old and about to be retired, though.

It's not politically feasible to cut all that's unnecessary from the Italian Navy, of course. Likely almost everyone in Italy would want to keep a certain minimum for retaining naval competence at the very least.
It might be feasible to change the order for 15 F-35B (STOVL version with poor range) to F-35As for the air force. The ship inventory could be thinned out by mothballing, selling or scrapping old ships and not ordering any new ones.

The "PPA" patrol ship
class of seven units, had but one been laid down a few weeks
ago only

It might be possible to cancel these orders, but this depends on the
contract details. The dire fiscal situation should offer a political opportunity and motivation to enact such cuts.

(2) Air Force

Cut the air force to what can be maintained with good training, high material and personnel-wise readiness and adequate munitions stocks. This may be as few as 60-80 combat aircraft. I advise against ordering any additional combat aircraft in the next years.

60 frequently updated combat aircraft with pilots who fly 300 hours/year would be more valuable than 200+ combat aircraft of 80's and 90's technology with pilots who fly less than 165 hours/year would be.

Sell or mothball the low value light attack aircraft (AMX). Third World customers might be found for this if the price is right.

Get rid of the air show unit (Frecce Tricolori).

Reduce the oversized fleet of support aircraft.

Transfer the ASMP/T area air defence batteries from the army to the air force.

The Tornado ECR unit may not maintain its utility in the SEAD role for long, but it could specialise in naval strike with the addition of the NSM/JSM munition (about 100 missiles should be in stock) and much training in anti-ship strike synchronisation and aerial refuelling. A couple of the least worn-out Tornado IDS could be retained in the same unit for practice.

Ensure that the air force is actually deployable within European NATO; air defence batteries and combat aviation units should be able to deploy by long distances (such as to Crete, Poland, Romania or Hungary) within a few days. This may rest on the use of civilian transport aircraft and does not necessitate a large transport aircraft fleet.

Participate in NATO and European schemes for joint support aircraft (MPA, EW, tankers, transports, trainers, AEW) when there are opportunities.

(3) Army

It makes little sense to have mechanised brigades on Sardinia and Sicily. There's hardly any threat of invasion and these forces cannot be deployed to allies under attack as quickly as forces in continental Italy.

I propose thus to establish militia forces on both Sardinia and Sicily that specialise on the defence of their island against invasion by airborne (lightly mechanised) forces, on quickly making harbours and airports unusable when ordered, on airbase security, coast observation and natural disaster responses. They need no better than towed artillery and no powerful anti-tank assets.

A single brigade with wheeled AFVs (including wheeled SPGs) could serve as a continental Italy quick response force with similar missions. It could be augmented by a regiment in Rome that protects the government in the event of crisis or conflict. Both formations could be partially active and partially composed of reservists or 'weekend warriors'.

Finally, a small corps with four to six well-funded mechanised brigades with enough tank transporters for quick long-range road marches and high readiness for conventional high end land warfare should exist, preferably based in Northern Italy with frequent road marches of each one complete brigade to exercises in Poland and Romania.

The army should aspire for such a high readiness that this corps would be battle-ready in Poland or Romania within two weeks, arriving with 80-90% of nominal strength in personnel and equipment as well as with three combat days worth of munitions (munitions for several more days should be transported to a logistical hub by civilian vehicles).

This corps should be brought up to high quality in training and doctrine, capable of both very high tempo mobile warfare in offence (especially raids, hasty attacks, river crossings) and defence (especially delaying actions) as well as relatively slow-moving offence (such as systematic reduction of pockets and clearing of settlements) and defence (such as defence in woodland, defence against river crossings).

Neither 105 mm tank guns (as on Centauro) nor the currently used ATGMs (including Spike models) should be considered as trustworthy anti-tank assets against whatever threat dares to attack NATO/EU. As usual, I recommend to have a look at HVMs like the CKEM project because the 120 mm L/44 tank guns of the Arietes shouldn't be the only somewhat trustworthy AT assets.***

_ _ _ _ _

I was guided by a near-absence of plausible threats in the Mediterranean region and a similar assumption as for Germany:

Air and land power should be maintained with the intention of preventing war by deterrence and in the case of failure achieve a quick white peace by quick deployment and battlefield success. The idea is that if a nation that's surrounded by friendly nations and impotent nations defends its allies somewhere else on the same continent it doesn't need to defend itself at home. The recommended defences at home were thus the bare minimum, meant against airborne coup de mains rather than invasion by land.

Most appalling is the navy, which has such a small antisubmarine capability that it would hardly find any of the very few threat subs in the large Mediterranean Sea during wartime. It's unnecessary against surface threats. There's very little actual defence utility in that navy. I disregard the possibility that Italian naval assets might be employed in the Atlantic Ocean (where it would be of little utility as well) because Italy with its location and relatively large readiness to spend on the military (compared to smaller allies such as Croatia, for example) should be a capable early responder to aggressions in Eastern Europe, similar to Germany. This leads to a preference for quickly deployable land power over naval power that can be substituted for by American, British, Canadian and French naval power. Allied air power is also more quickly deployable over long distances than allied land power.

Overall I suppose Italy could actually cut its military spending and still be a more valuable alliance member than presently.